Top Ten Episodes of Iron Man: Armored Adventures

Iron Man: Armored Adventures carries on the traditional superhero cartoon staple of making everyone a teenager and injecting drama into everything, this time asking what if Tony Stark had his Iron Man armor at the sweet age of sixteen? With a surprisingly boastful two seasons scrying the depths of the Marvel Universe, you may doubt if you have enough time to fully appreciate every Arc Reactor charged episode. Have no fear, as I am here to provide you with the cheat sheet of what you need to know about this underage underdog of umber armor with the top ten episodes of Iron Man: Armored Adventures.

10. Iron Man vs. The Crimson Dynamo

Ivan Vanko, the Crimson Dynamo (who was technically depicted by Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2) is caught in a solar flare in a deep space mission gone wrong due to poor science.

Instead of gaining superpowers based on whatever he was holding at the time like the rest of the Marvel Universe characters do when irradiated, when bombarded by solar radiation and left to drift in a mecha in space for two years, Vanko goes from highly-trained cosmonaut to Cosmo sex-column writer. It appears that Vanko has developed space madness, not unlike Firefly’s Reavers, Snake Eater’s The Fury, Dave from 2001, or Major Tom of David Bowie’sSpace Oddity. How many fictional characters will we have to sacrifice to vacuum-dementia before we outlaw space?

The Dynamo’s goal is to return to home base, Pegasus-1, in order to exact revenge on his “comrades” who left him alone to die in space and live inside a chubby robot that walks as if it always needs to poop right now. Personally, I’m surprised that he thought about these dudes while floating through space for a a few years… or that he hasn’t married the Crimson Dynamo suit already, which despite its name is clearly white.

Regardless, “Iron Man vs. The Crimson Dynamo” remains one of my favorite episodes, both because it addresses my favorite recurring villain-fuel of space-madness, and also because it follows what I like to call a “Stop the Juggernaut” plot outline. In these plots, a gigantic force of nature has to barrel through several lines of defense in order to get to a specific goal, and the heroes have to throw as many things as possible in its way in order to stop it, proving to be unsuccessful only up until the last minute where something non-violent happens in order to stop it. In X-Men Evolution, this was Xavier doing a mental breach of the Juggernaut, in Justice League Unlimited it was a lecture from Lex Luthor, and here it’s a kindly Russian family getting hugged by a fat robot. Delightful.

9. Ready, A.I.M., Fire

As if the title didn’t give it away, this episode introduces Advanced Idea Mechanics, or A.I.M., into the Armored Adventures world, hitting the ground running with a great sequence of A.I.M. henchmen firing at Tony with a variety of science guns.

An anti-gravity gun hits Tony, causing him to enter earth’s orbit, and then burn up upon re-entry when the armor goes through a reboot, which features a perfectly ill fitting dirge of Muzak as Tony hurtles towards the pavement.

This is all before the opening credits mind you.

This episode also features the introduction of S.H.I.E.L.D., as you can’t have evil henchmen without good henchmen, so it’s an episode of many firsts. Another is Obediah Shane’s surprisingly hot daughter Whitney wants to go to Tony’s high school, specifically just to get closer to Tony.

A.I.M. is off the walls bananas for bees, so much so that even when breaking the law with their terrorist department, they still make sure to incorporate the bee theme that corporate is just crazy about. In the real world, that would be like Louis Vuitton employees robbing banks with Louis Vuitton-checkered balaclavas and shoving the loot into LV money bags.

Interestingly enough however, A.I.M.’s redesigns for Armored Adventures is actually significantly cooler than their comic book counterparts, with the head A.I.M. scientist sporting a Castle Crasher vibe that makes AIM look more like a science terrorist cell than renegade engineers in clean suits.

A.I.M. approaches Tony with a job opportunity, and Tony, unable to notice matching honeycomb themes despite his genius IQ, inadvertently places his friends under the hypnotic technology of The Controller. This mind control is represented by a paleness of the skin, red eyes, and a red runny nose. For millions of dollars and countless hours of research and illegal heists, A.I.M. has finally made a crack-head machine.

Incidentally I don’t know what it is about the A.I.M. henchmen, but they are always solid sources of hilarious banter. Something about the clean suits/bee-keeper look just makes everything they say ridiculous; I mean why else are they the go-to henchmen in Deadpool comics?

8. Man and Iron Man

In this episode we open on a Matrix Revolutions inspired fight in the rain with Whiplash, who I could have sworn died in a fire, fighting Iron Man atop a flying platform before they both crumble to the ground like a failed sci-fi franchise.

Although we started in media res, the episode flashes back to before this apparent low-point. At this point in the episode, I’m thinking okay, maybe they will explain how Whiplash is back from the dead, but nope. Dude is simply just chilling downtown with a new robot arm, explaining that he has to work for tech-villain supplier Mr. Fix to clear his debt. Mr. Fix gives Whiplash an upgraded version of his whip-arms, giving him full access to all of Ivy’s combos from Soul Caliber.

Wait. So if Whiplash has to work for Mr. Fix in order to fix his arm, which if The Six Million Dollar Man has taught us anything costs at least 2 million dollars, then Tony is just beating on a double amputee who is being blackmailed by a mad scientist.

Back in the Matrix Revolutions rain, Tony is forced to abandon his Iron Man armor, which is then inhabited by a Stark nanotech virus that has gone insane.

Yes, this is the exact same plot of that one Batman Beyond episode with the ghost in the machine, except that episode had a utility belt and domino mask.

We learn that Pepper is able to have two conversations simultaneously, one via txt and the other via mouth with the same group in real time, and Moose stand-in Happy Hogan can sleep with his eyes open, which begs the question– who is the real genius on this show?

So the virus hijacks the armor while Tony is still inside of it, and the suit almost repulsor blasts Mr. Fix’s face at point blank range before Tony can overpower it. This is all well and good, as we become aware that this is literally the story of a teenager in a walking tank, but it begs the question, when Tony blasted Madame Masque in her stomach, did that make her infertile?

Basically, it’s an artificial intelligence plot straight out of Asimov, with the suit viewing Tony’s well-being as its prime directive, regarding Tony’s friends and the outside world as threats. This perspective translates into the armor attempting to kill Tony’s friends, telling him not to resist and assuring him that “all of his biological needs will be met…” as she (the armor has a girl voice) slowly hover-sashays over to Tony, demanding that he get inside of her.

Literally, she opens up the chest part of the armor for him to climb inside. Nothing sexual about it. Nope. Nope nope nope.

Tony’s arc reactor battery dies briefly, and the armor repeats “Protect the wearer” while reaching for a circular blue disc as a thick ring spins in its own user face HUD. I think this is a convoluted metaphor for safe sex, but then again this entire episode is just… trippy.

By the episode’s end, Tony has reprogrammed the armor so that it would never do anything like that ever again, not knowing of the impossibly horrifying and intriguing acts that he only could’ve done while living inside of a iron-alloy based girlfriend.

7. Seeing Red

I’ll be honest, I was somewhat hesitant about Armored Adventures until I saw this episode.

Similar to a nice greatest hits without resorting to the dreaded clip show afterbirth of an episode, “Seeing Red” features the Crimson Dynamo Mk. II, which while no longer piloted by space-crazy Vanko, is loaded with enough ordinance to make a Gundam pilot weep dramatically into a control console, in addition to an actual crimson paint job. Well, a crimson highlighted paint job technically, but still better than just a tiny red star.

Say what you will about Obediah Stane, but the guy creates jobs, as he solely hires ex-convicts and general puppy-kickers to his illegal wares division.

Pepper meanwhile inexplicably carries on the episode in a stolen mascot uniform, analyzing problems that only mascots and astronauts have to contend with on a daily basis — sneezing inside of those giant helmets being one such event. It’s a crisis of infinite worlds in a globe-sized helmet and well reflective of the heroic natures of both professions, which is a fact of life and has nothing to do with the fact that I used to be a mascot.

It’s like he can feel how stupid this is through the phone.

To counter the Crimson Dynamo’s fat bouncer levels of strength, Tony dons a Hulk-Buster/Juggernaut inspired armor and breaks more walls than a Kool-Aid commercial compilation.

With the Dynamo defeated, Tony makes a vow of making better armors and better tech to better counter his new enemies, to which Rhodey replies:

“Will all that bring back your dad? Will all that fix your heart?”

While the dad thing is a solid point, better technology would totally fix Tony’s heart. In fact, doesn’t Tony have the reactor implant solely because surgical technology isn’t advanced enough to remove the shrapnel in him? COUGH Iron Man 3COUGH.

Additionally, this is the Marvel Universe; there’s totally a regeneration gun or something floating around the Watcher’s nightstand, so in summation, Rhodey is just being a Negative Nancy. Seriously, this Rhodey is more Don Cheadle than Terrence Howard it seems, serving more as a Melancholy Molly who just delays the plot as a representation of Tony’s conscience, or a Conscience Constance, if you will.

Ominously enough, the episode ends with a Starcraft Kerrigan sounding techno nanovirus that turns into bug/Xenomorph themed automaton, reflecting the moral implications of being a junior weapons manufacturer.

6. Chasing Ghosts

Madame Masque is impersonating Tony Stark, going on shooting sprees which kill absolutely zero people. Tony freaks, as he has to avoid police custody and track down a girl who he totally thought had sworn off villainy.

Masque reveals however that she is actually trying to save Tony’s life, as her father has taken out a hit on him. The contractor of said job is future Thunderbolt (and my favorite paranoid recluse that’s not Spider Jerusalem) Ghost. Armored Adventures‘ Ghost uses Starcraft’s Ghost and the original Ghost as inspiration, sporting a high powered hunting rifle, an active camouflage/phase drive, and the voice of Mojo Jojo himself, Michael Dobson, providing an appropriately gristly death rattle as he pursues Tony in what could make for an awesome Predator movie.

Whitney’s terrible aim therefore isn’t a throwback to the temper tantrums she threw in her initial appearance, rather her shooting at an invisible man. So what you get in this episode is Tony avoiding his friends, a shape shifting Madame Masque serving as a decoy, and Tony fighting an individual with some actual combat experience.

The episode gets exponentially more entertaining by the minute, with Ghost utilizing stealth tactics and critical hits worthy of a Team Fortress 2 Spy highlight reel, coming ultimately to a standoff between Ghost and Iron Man. While Ghost remains intangible, needing to become solid to fire his gun but knowing that Tony will just repulsor blast him the second he does, Ghost reveals that he doesn’t have to actually kill Tony today, but that doesn’t mean he won’t stop trying to fulfill his contract.

Then Rhodey does the best thing ever in the history of assassin plot lines and finally just asks the would-be assassin the most obvious question: How much are you getting paid for this? Whitney gives the dude triple his original contract, which comes out to be ten million somehow and, boom, plot solved.

5. X-Factor

In” X-Factor,” we learn about not getting your hopes up for cartoons themed around The Multiple Man’s detective agency, as Magneto pays a trip to New York City. While not fulfilling my pipe dreams of an X-Factor cartoon, as X-Men cameos go, Magneto really is the most interesting one you could have on an Iron Man show.

Simon Trask has been assaulted for his anti-mutant statements, with his father Bolivar seeking the attention of the Brotherhood of Mutants leader.

The mutant debate becomes the forefront with Stark and Co., as Rhodey expresses that mutants are people, but Pepper states that mutants should be identified, and probably put on a list of some sort, even though she herself is a ginger.

Coincidentally, the teacher pauses to introduce the new girl in the class who is instantly ostracized. If you haven’t figured it out, she is also a mutant, but her classmates have to have some irradiated brains of their own because, man, they are dumb. Consider, for instance, how they insult her immediately after she introduces herself:

“Nice clothes, if you’re from loser-ville!”

Everybody laughs, holding their sides as if they were drug mules, unaware of the fact that they themselves must have mutated brains for laughing at that Lazy Susan of a joke. Seriously, if jokes were X-Men characters, that putdown would be Wing.

Immediately after, the same boy who said this joke, who has just got to secretly be crushing on the mutant girl, demands she hand over her backpack, prompting Annie to unleash her mutant powers in self-defense.

Now that I think of it, there has to be some closeted X-gene supporters in the Marvel Universe, and this bully is definitely one of them. It’s high school, all of his friends rag on the mutant girl, and he doesn’t want to be unpopular so he joins in and mocks her, but he makes sure that no one ever plays with his phone because he has the 3-boob hooker scene from Total Recall saved on it… Schwarzenegger and Farrell versions.

Y’see this is what I never understood. The schoolchildren shun the girl, even though she just telekinetically used a hallway to wail on a bully. Has no one seen Carrie? Carrie… Annie… c’mon even their names are similar. Those who fail to observe pop culture are doomed to fall into its tropes.

Magneto appears for Annie, but sadly Magneto has no cape sadly, and this really just diminishes the general grandeur of his total look. Doctor Doom had his trademark cloak, why can’t Magneto have his cape? It even looks like they meant to animate the cape in but they just ran out of time, because Magneto always has a ton of empty space whenever he is onscreen.

In a move about as well thought-out as Crystal Pepsi, Iron Man arrives on scene to protect his new friend from the Master of Magnetism, resulting in a fight that surprisingly doesn’t clock in at less than five seconds.

Why Magneto doesn’t just crumple the armor with Stark inside? It’s a kid’s cartoon. Magneto uses a traffic light to bind Tony, but Magneto doesn’t even need to do that at all, he controls magnetism, if he doesn’t want the armor to move, the armor doesn’t move. Hell, he could just rip off the suit too if he wanted.

During the fight, Annie throws a metal barrel at Magneto, which he doesn’t block… wait, what?

Yeah, this episode starts strong but the logic falls apart faster than an Emma Frost costume without double-stick tape. As Pepper explains Magneto’s back history, Max Eisenhart, aka Erik Lensherr, aka Magnus, was part of the Weapon X program at one point or another. Armored Adventures… even when you have it going for you, you can still go all Smallville on me.

Everyone treats Magneto like a villain, even though he is trying to stop genocide. Seriously, that’s why Magneto is so dope, because he is a sympathetic villain. I suppose his replacing the genocide of homo sapiens with homo superior is wrong, but no one really points out that Magneto does kind of have a point.

Magneto says that when he is done with Iron Man, he will turn him into abstract art, to which I ask Magnus, why don’t you just do that now?

War Machine pulls off Magneto’s helmet when he is distracted. Which is so dumb, because both things are made out of metal, but whatever, Eric has white Lance Bass hair.

So Magneto is in police custody in a plastic cell and Annie has learned to gain confidence both in herself and her mutant abilities and thinks she’s going to like it at the Tomorrow Academy… but wait there’s a twist! Annie wasn’t her real name; it was actually Jean Grey, and who just so happens to wheelchair in, but Charles Xavier.

Nice neat wrap-up that makes you feel less bad for assuming Annie was just a run of the mill telekinetic.

4. Ghost in the Machine

What do you know? Another Ghost episode, however, here we get to see some hot invisible on translucent action, as Tony deploys the stealth suit to fight the Ghost.

Taking a note from Armor Wars, Ghost is hired to steal the Iron Man armor, and tracks Iron Man back to the Armory, learning of his secret identity as Tony Stark.

Ghost doesn’t get the actual Iron Man armor, but he steals a helmet—making the golden Avenger suit useless – in addition to hightailing it with all of Tony’s armor specs.

Making due with the stealth tech armor which sacrifices firepower for a stealth-drive, and with Ghost having this little hobgoblin glider set-up to compensate for his lack of flight capabilities, we witness a game of stealth-suit cat and active-camouflage-mouse as Tony chases Ghost throughout New York City. All along the way, Ghost remains one step ahead leaving claymore breadcrumbs like a Unibomber Hansel and Gretel.

This is a great adaptation of a classic Iron Man story, as Ghost displays his new hard-light holograms, or “soligrams” as he calls them to my chagrin, in this great sequence where he just constantly teleports and shoots Stark in the back of the head, gangland style.

Now technically, the Iron Man armors have never been patented, leaving Stane free to make armors of his own, and because Ghost is all about the Benjamins, he sells the exact same specs to rival weapons manufacturer, Justin Hammer.

Tony arrives just in time to witness the deal being finalized and engages in a Ghost-fight. Another fantastic standstill is reached, with Ghost phasing a hand around Tony’s heart, unable to go solid without getting his hand sliced off by the armor.

Once again a compromise is made — Ghost hasn’t leaked Tony’s identity yet, claiming that he will wait until Tony is 18 before any blackmailing will take place, which considering his mercenary lifestyle is awfully considerate of him.

By the episode’s end, we are now aware that a war of the weapons manufacturers will soon begin…. in the very next episode called “Armor Wars”, which is basically just Iron Man fighting repainted versions of himself. It’s not great, but this prelude to it really is.

3. Doomsday

In “Doomsday,” The Mandarin returns again to tell Tony that Dr. Doom has found the ninth Makluan ring.

You may have noticed that I specifically haven’t mentioned The Mandarin in this article up until now. This is because it is not actually The Mandarin, but Gene Khan, The Mandarin’s stepson who is impersonating his father and is trying to obtain the ten Makluan rings.

Here’s the thing about Gene Khan: Gene Khan sucks. He is a teenage analogue so that Tony’s nemesis isn’t some old dude and every episode where he has to track down a ring is a crazy lame Dragonball Z knock-off. If an episode revolves around finding a Makluan ring, or has Mandarin in the title, skip it. There is a reason why Gene obtains rings #6 and #7 off-screen in Season 2 for instance, because he is the worst.

Gene’s outfit doesn’t even make any sense, as he has the head of No More Heroes protagonist Travis Touchdown, the track pants of Bruce Lee from Enter The Dragon, and the dragon thermal with inexplicable gun-holster accoutrement of The Invincible Iron Fist’s Orson.

The Grey Gargoyle is the ninth ring’s guardian, but guess what — the ring is gone, taken up by one Victor Von Doom, who promptly turns Earth into DOOM-Earth by opening up wormholes across time and space.

Pepper pilots the stealth suit for the first time, in preparation for a suit of her own, performing my favorite thing in media, which is when a character mentions the name of the episode or movie they are in as she looks at portals opening up across the sky:

“It looks like…Doomsday”

Mandarin teleports Tony to Castle Doom, and down 7 rings is forced to work together with Tony.

Doom, while having some well-incorporated tech in his Castle, still abides by old super villain classics, like the slowly moving spike wall, candlestick leading to a secret passageway, and standard-issue Doom grandiose:

“KNEEL! KNEEL BEFORE DOOM!”

“I will tear off your hands and wear them as trophies from my belt,” Doom claims triumphantly. But wait — did you really think you’d encounter Doom that early into his castle/the episode? No. This is but a Doom-Bot in a fake throne room, although keep in mind that this robotic decoy was hard to kill.

Iron Man is reunited with his father Howard Stark, but has to pretend that he isn’t Tony, lest Doom figures out his secret identity.

Doom talks to a demon centipede from beyond the void, offering the pure souls of Tony, Howard, and the Mandarin in exchange for the souls of his loved ones. So really, it’s hard to feel pure hatred for Doom, although you have to wonder why he didn’t just sacrifice some Latverian orphans or something. Doom is a despot, it’s not like they could say no, don’t have legal guardians to say no for them anyway.

Tony reveals that he keeps the rings in super pockets on his armor! Adorable. Mandarin gets the ninth ring, closing the portal and saving Pepper and Rhodey from the laziest homage to the Avengers ever — just these floating blue orbs that hang in the sky and shoot lightning bolts.

2. Designed Only for Chaos

In “Designed Only for Chaos”, The Living Laser is dying, because man was not meant to be made entirely out of photons. Man was meant to be made out of blood and spleens and organs and stuff.

Tony offers to help Arthur, The Living Laser, claiming that it was Howard Stark’s technology that turned him into a super-villain in the first place. Laser, however, contends that it is because of Iron Man stopping his crime spree that he is dying.

Good little bit on the ethical morality of heroes but before we can get too philosophical, my favorite villain on this show, Ghost, pops in to inject some action.

Ghost was hired to kidnap the Living Laser, by the same people who hired him to kill Tony because apparently Ghost has just glowing Yelp reviews.

Ghost also kills power to the shield helicarrier engines, which seems to be something that happens to the helicarrier at least once a month when its not being teleported to some negative zone.

As it turns out Ghost was hired by A.I.M. to deliver the Living Laser to their headquarters so that he could power their greatest creation ever, MODOC.

Yeah, not MODOK, as this is a Mental Organism Designed Only for Chaos, which while I’ll admit sounds much more sophisticated for a major science terrorist nerd cell group project, is still a dumb censoring.

Incidentally, could you imagine being one of the guys hired to work on MODOC? Building a constantly grinning giant head fetus that’s going to become your new boss? And your current boss, a self-proclaimed super scientist, treats your project like the coming of Science-Jesus? An event they likely won’t witness due to frequent Iron Man science busts, and even then MODOC is clearly designed only for chaos, what does this gigantic fetus know about infrastructure? Damn thing even looks a bit like Overlord Manatee.

Ghost sums up my feelings towards the giant baby fetus perfectly: “I mean really with all your super science you couldn’t make him look a little less ugly?”

Ghost bounces, knowing that killing Iron Man isn’t worth the hassle, but MODOC awakens, and I have to say he has never been this disturbing before.

He just looks like he is constantly in a state of just wanting to die, but that’s just my opinion. Can I even call MODOC a he? I can’t imagine that AIM bothered to construct its downstairs, what with the little action they themselves get.

Living Laser overhears that his guardian angel and nemesis are in actuality the same person — because despite their vast intellect, AIM designed MODOC to scream-talk all the time. Laser breaks MODOC’s mental hold on Iron Man, as Laser is immune to psychic attacks for some reason. Laser goes supernova and dives through MODOC like Neo at the end of The Matrix.

Laser, reaching critical capacity and turning into light itself, realizes that although he was told he was worthless in life and tried to kill Iron Man to prove he had some worth, it was ironically his act of saving Iron Man that gave his life some meaning.

Living Laser will be resurrected in the next season, making this entire episode moot in retrospect.

1. The Might of Doom

In “The Might of Doom,” Dr. Doom arrives in New York City to personally purchase Iron Man specs from Obediah Stane. In this pre-credit opening, Doom is perfect as he exhumes gravitas, grandeur and his own name with every statement he makes.

Coincidentally, Tony and his friends get a lecture on Latveria, a country still in development whose laws and constitution change daily based on Doom’s will. Essentially Latveria is a Romanian North Korea but with Doombots.

Doom’s design for Armored Adventures is pretty loyal to his original design, with his face always looking like he is surprised, but oddly enough he looks somehow naked in his armor. I mean I know I should treat this Doom like a unique character, but after seeing him wear a tunic for years, you can’t help but consider him streaking when he forgets to put it on.

Despite his “nude” appearance however, Doom’s armor is impenetrable. During his fight with War Machine and Iron Man, Doom just walks slowly through the battlefield, not even trying to avoid their Starktech ordinance, and properly trounces their inferior suits.

Much like his comic book counterpart, Doom displays a dazzling mastery of both science and magic, utilizing tech in such a manner that it blurs the line between the two completely, as Tony’s description of Doom as a “medieval robot” perfectly reflects the Latverian despot’s character.

The beauty of the episode is that Doom is an actual villain, a scientist in his own right who doesn’t need the Iron Man specs to build armor, rather to just augment his own. While Ghost, Unicorn, and Titanium Man can certainly put up a decent fight against Tony, Doom is… well Doom. He can take on both Iron Man and War Machine single-handedly, and doesn’t even need to break into so much as a jog to do so. Doom even catches the bugging devices–which are literally robot flies–which Tony plants on Stane.

Whereas every other Marvel staple that appears on Armored Adventures has a teenage element shoehorned in — Rick Jones in the first Hulk episode, The Mandarin being Gene Khan — this is pure uncut Doom we are dealing with here. The only reason that Doom wants Tony’s armor specs in the first place is to fix a small 1.7-second energy recharge rate in his armor.

This first appearance of Doom has the Reed Richards nemesis not wasting any time: Doom’s quasi-magic science puts Tony into a comatose state, with his consciousness briefly stuck in a Doom-limbo. Likewise, Doom sabotages a Stane energy generator in order to take out his competition in the West, and in a final fight Doom straight up just rips off War Machine’s mask, completely emasculating the walking battleship. Doom knows War Machine’s secret identity but he doesn’t even care, because Doom only has time for Doom-things. Doom is my favorite, if it wasn’t obvious.

Just as the two were about to prove their tech’s worth, S.H.I.E.L.D. intervenes. Not to save Tony Deus ex Machina style, for Doom IS the god out of the machine. That, and Doom has diplomatic immunity.

There you have it– the top ten episodes of Iron Man: Armored Adventures. Keep in mind however that before being assigned this article, I hadn’t seen a single episode of Armored Adventures in full, so I want to know what you think– should an Iron Monger episode have made the cut? One of the Hulk cameos perhaps? Should I have only included Ghost episodes? Would killing MODOC qualify as murder or mercy? Let us know in the comments!